COLUMN: Government as employer, entitlement provider simply does not work

When it comes to getting votes, politicians generally vow “no new taxes” and “a need to correct wage inequality.”

Well the president who said “read my lips, no new taxes” was booted out of the White House after one term.

He failed to uphold his pledge.

Now we have President Barack Obama referencing wage inequality to raise minimum wage earnings. We see his populist ploy at promoting a false bump in wage equality. In other words, slap a higher tax on the wealthy while tucking a few more dollars in the pockets of working middle class Americans. By his deed, the low-end workers in the minimum wage bracket would also see a few more dollars in their paycheck.

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Here in Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder is being lobbied to use the state’s $400-million budget surplus to pump more funding into road repairs and public education. Sounds great. But hold on governor, isn’t it time to give the state’s working population a tax refund?

When the state and federal governments over take their share of personal tax dollars, taxpayers get a refund based on their yearly itemized contributions. With a massive budget surplus now in fold how about a cut in the personal tax. For once the political arena can give working Michiganians a break. Cut the personal tax rate from its present 4.25 to 3.9 by 2018. But start it now in an election year. If put off, the liberal spenders will find ways to take care of the special interest lobbies that fund their campaigns.

Macomb County Republican State Sen. Jack Brandenburg of Harrison Township and State Rep. Jeff Farrington of Utica are on the right track. Taxpayers should get a break as had been promised when the present tax rates were cast by the Legislature.

As for our state’s roads there’s no disagreement. Michigan’s weather does a job on our roads. But let’s remember our state ranks sixth nationally in federal and state road taxes. Somehow the state’s sales tax is also tucked into the gas pumps to build better roads. Yet every four years or so we hear the need to pump up road taxes.

And on the other ledger, teacher unions want more for education to enhance salary negotiations. If additional funding is directed to K-12 public education, it should go to special education needs.

In Obama’s call to stick the wealthy with higher taxes, while pumping up low-end wages the president and his liberal comrades lash out at capitalism as an evil megalopolis engulfing the nation. Yet they rake-in millions from those who embrace the progressive credo that we need to funnel the redistribution of wealth in this nation.

That’s the socialist ploy to “change America.” It’s not the credo upheld by free-enterprise working Americans.

Obama went to prestigious Harvard to get a law degree because it was the right ticket to make more money. I applaud him for seeking out the best for his financial future. Sure beats being a community activist in Chicago.

The wealthy in this nation invest their profits to create more jobs in the competitive market. In doing so they help swell the tax take by government. That’s the American way. But liberals see government as the employer and the entitlement provider.

That system does not work. Show me one successful socialist-run government.

Enough said.

Mitch Kehetian is a retired editor of The Macomb Daily and former board trustee at Central Michigan University.